Reading Challenges

Some kids love to read and will read whether you ask them to or not. Some kids avoid reading unless you make them. My goal, as a teacher, is to help kids find a love and purpose for reading. I try to keep the "have tos" about reading homework to minimum and encourage the "want tos".

A couple weeks ago I came across a reading bingo sheet on Pinterest and decided to make one for my class. I offered extra Class Dojo Challenge Accepted points for reading books from a variety of genres. It was fun to help kids go on a hunt through our class and school libraries to find a science fiction or historical fiction because that's the last box they needed to check off.

This week I'll be offering a new Bingo option. Inspired by this blog on Fun Places to Read, I remembered all the fun places I loved to read with my boys. Here are the links to my Bingo pages that you can use for your class. Hopefully, our kids will read something that sparks a fire and love for reading that will last a lifetime!

Book Genre Bingo

Fun Places to Read Bingo

Classroom Clickers in a Low Tech Classroom

Have you ever seen examples of classrooms with clickers? Have you tried to figure out how you could get your hands on a set? Donations? Donors Choose? Second job? 
Now you don't have to as long as you have paper and one device - a smart phone or a tablet will do.
Plickers is an iOS or Android app that the teacher uses to scan student cards. Each student has a paper card with a unique visual code. The code has four sides labeled A, B, C, and D. The student turns the card and holds it up for the teacher to scan. The app scans the codes, records who the teacher assigned each card to, and captures the answer each student chose.

What an amazing app! You don't need to be a 1to1 class, you don't need a set of ipads or clickers, you don't need to share devices among kids, all you need is paper. The cards can be scanned from a distance so the teacher could stay in front of the class and just scan the group while they hold up the cards.

Image from https://www.plickers.com/support

Check it out. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plickers/id701184049?mt=8

What if Everybody Did That?

Last year I found this book, What If Everybody Did That? and used it as a read aloud for my class. It sparked some great conversations and fun scenarios. The story goes through a day in the life of a little boy who makes some minor poor choices. But then it is pointed out how bad this would be if everyone did that. From leaving trash on the ground to calling out in class so many small things become big deals quickly. This coming year, I'd love to have the class create their own book patterned in a similar way after doing the read aloud. I found this great lesson plan all set.

Lesson Plan - Click Here

Here is a free resource for class book pages TPT Book Page

I hope you enjoy this book as much as we did.

Playing Around with Classroom Design

There are many versions of the "In Our Classroom" poster and I decided to play around with it with my Photoshop. I'm still not sure if I want to use the black and white or color version. Feel free to download and use it yourself. I searched to see where the original poster came from but haven't found the author. If you know the origin, please let me know so I can give credit. If you'd like to use this poster - it is formatted for 11x17. You should be able to print it out at your local office supply store. Here's a link to the images in jpg and pdf file forms Click Here

 

Students as Authors

Student Created Audio Books

You know how kids love to be read to? And they love to draw? And they love technology? Well, here is a combination of all three that inspired my kids to add more detail to their own writing and keep writing!

Students wrote their revised and edited stories into these cute little booklets. And you're thinking - "So what? Everyone does that."  "That's nice. I never thought of that before."

After writing, they illustrated their stories. Then, it got interesting! The students read and recorded their stories on a web based audio program called Vocaroo.com. It's a free, very simple website with one button "click to record" and "stop". Then save. The site has a link when you save which will automatically create a QR Code. We printed the QR Code, glued it into the book and now had a new audio book for our listening center. 

The amazing thing was that, while listening to each others stories in the listening center, even my reluctant writers wanted to write more and more. 

Next year, I will have the kids branch out to writing and recording  non-fiction and much more!

If you'd like a copy of my booklet pages, you can get them from TPT.

Booklet with Primary Lines

Booklet with Upper Grade Solid Lines

Here is a post from Teresa at Fun in K/1 who uses Vocaroo and has a great graphic with instructions for students in creating the recording and QR code. 
http://www.funink1.com/2013/07/qr-codes-with-audio.html